Dog bites, beatings, prison overcrowding: the Council of Europe on Tuesday painted an alarming picture of the situation of people detained in French-speaking Switzerland, denouncing persistent “police violence”.
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In a report, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) of the Council of Europe, of which Switzerland is a member, says it has received, from foreign nationals detained by the police, “allegations of physical ill-treatment and excessive use of force, including police dog bites, baton strikes, head strikes, punches and kicks, and violent tackles to the ground.
“A persistent practice”
“The worrying proportion of allegations of deliberate ill-treatment, particularly in the canton of Geneva, suggests that police violence is a persistent practice,” denounces the CPT, which in March 2024 carried out a visit to four French-speaking cantons (Fribourg , Geneva, Valais and Vaud).
The CPT “regrets that its long-standing recommendations regarding guarantees against ill-treatment” at the time of the arrest “have not been implemented”.
The right of access to a lawyer and a doctor as well as to have a loved one informed should be granted from the start of detention, argue the authors of the report.
Measures to prosecute the police
In the canton of Vaud, the prison areas of police premises continue to be used to detain defendants “in inadequate conditions and for periods of up to several weeks, well beyond the legal limit of 48 hours” , they write. “This unacceptable practice should be stopped immediately.”
The CPT recommends that effective measures be taken to prosecute police officers accused of acts of ill-treatment and to generalize the video recording of hearings.
Prison overcrowding: a major problem
Furthermore, “prison overcrowding remains a major problem in the prisons visited, particularly in the cantons of Geneva and Vaud,” according to the report, which reports occupancy rates of 132% and 166% in two establishments visited.
In their responses to the Council of Europe, the cantonal authorities concerned assure that they “do not tolerate any mistreatment by the police and that possible abuses are systematically denounced and are the subject of an investigation ”, according to the report.
The Council of Europe is responsible for upholding the values of democracy and human rights in the 46 member countries, including Switzerland.
